The Pirate Must Dance
by InfiniteRegress
Summary: Captain Hook has been researching how to be a proper pirate in this very modern world. Oh, if only the spell had not been cast when he was studying The Pirates of Penzance. And the spell, it's spreading. A Once Upon a Time Musical by a writer who hates songfic. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. A paradox."


_I do not own anything affiliated to the following: __**Once Upon a Time**__, __**Pirates of the Caribbean**__, __**Peter Pan**__, __**The Princess Bride**__, or__** McDonald's**__. The __**Pirates of the Penzance**__ is in the public domain but if there is anything derivative from that that isn't, I don't own that either._

Set sometime between the return from Neverland and the curse that sent everyone back to the Enchanted Forest

Prologue

**Granny's Diner**

Emma slapped Hook's hand away, "My fries!"

Hook was tucked into a cozy corner booth opposite Emma. All the other fairy tale patrons were keeping their distance. They were clearly not accustomed to his new alliances and were pretending that they weren't watching him and Emma with rapt attention, "What all these 'do-gooders' do not seem to understand is that I AM A PIRATE. When they insist on these petty slights, like bringing my food without necessary haste, only the heroes suffer. When pirates are deprived of what they want, they take it from someone else. It's the pirate way." Hook concluded, managing to divert Emma long enough to swipe a fry and drag it through ketchup before popping it into his mouth.

Hook swiped his tongue across his lips to get that last bit of ketchup and noticed that he now also had Emma's rapt attention. So he did it again, and again. When Emma caught on to what Hook was up to, she shook off her minor lust induced stupor and kicked him in the shin. This led to a minor skirmish between feet. They were starting to slip beneath the table when Granny slid Hook's plate in front of him.

Diverted from the foot war by his dinner, Hook proclaimed, "And that's another thing…"

Emma had been dealing with 'and that's another thing' for several days now. Hook had decided that he would be staying in Storybrooke. Further he would remain aligned with Emma. Hook was, in fact, plotting for that to happen in more ways than one. But Hook also declared that he would not be giving up piracy. Indeed, he was determined to become a thoroughly modern pirate.

This did not include researching contemporary pirates in the news. Oh, no. Hook's research was focused solely on television and movies, and heaven help them all, the internet. If she ever found the person who had the idea to put a mobile hot spot on the Jolly Roger, Emma was going to murder them.

Henry had been spending a lot of time with Regina, wanting to give her a chance to prove she'd changed. This left Emma with a lot of free time and she somehow ended up spending most of it with Hook conducting his research.

Emma had been able to divert Hook from how the modern world told his own tale with the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ movies, or so she thought. But she had forgotten the name, or rather the names. And that's how 'and another thing' had begun.

The first movie wasn't so bad. Hook just wanted to know if this was a history of her Swan ancestress. But the second film, that's when things took a bad turn.

Had Emma remembered the legend of Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchmen and made the connection to Killian Jones, maybe it could have been avoided. But it never even occurred to Emma that Hook might have a cousin Davy. He did and that cousin was lost at sea shortly before Killian embarked to Neverland on the King's mission. Hook did not take well, the aspersion on his family name by portraying his poor, deceased, honorable seafaring cousin as a treacherous squid-like creature.

When they had run into Regina on the street the following day, Hook had demanded to know whether she had played a part in what had happened to poor Davy Jones; Regina being the only person known to Hook to separate hearts from bodies and store them away, routinely. Emma had to drag Hook away from Regina, bodily, as he insisted loudly that a woman who disguised herself as Ursula would certainly be capable of masquerading as Calypso and cursing his cousin with an octopus face.

But it was the third movie that drove Hook to exclaim with umbrage, "Your ancestress has aligned with that bird man to destroy my cousin." That was enough to make Emma give in. She kissed Hook to distract him from Disney movies. It worked quite well. After a while Emma forgot her purpose and just went with it.

At that point Emma decided to abandon the _Pirates of the Caribbean_ movies and just get _Peter Pan_ over with. Hook, as expected, did not react well to the portrayal that he was deathly afraid of alarm clocks. Emma pointed out that the alarm clock just signaled the crocodile. Hook countered that this was even worse because it implied that he'd spent hundreds of years terrified of Rumpelstiltskin. Emma started to point out that Peter Pan was also portrayed as a hero, so how reliable could it be; but she gave up instead and just kissed him.

"Look at this" Hook said, gesturing towards his fish sandwich and bringing Emma out of her thoughts and into the present, "I think Granny is mocking me."

"How is that? By bringing your dinner? Stopping you from stealing mine?" Emma asked.

"It's a fish sandwich. It's a traitorous insult!" Hook exclaimed, going for his sword.

Emma reached over the table and placed her hand against his arm and just shook her head silently. She was certain Hook had ordered a fish sandwich.

"Captain Crook." Hook explained, calmed by Emma's touch. When Emma did not seem to grasp his meaning, he expounded on his topic, "Captain Crook is based on me. I saw it on the internet. A restaurant used me to advertise their fare. They built playgrounds so children could climb about me and my ship. They made me obsessed with stealing fish sandwiches and a lackey to something called a Hamburglar who spoke only in gibberish that I was forced to translate."

Emma muttered something about that making sense because gibberish was Hook's first language, but couldn't quite cover her mirth.

"You laugh, Sheriff. But know, in this particular story you are portrayed as a Constable with a hamburger for a head and your charming Farther would be Mayor McCheese."

Suddenly Emma's dinner, a cheeseburger, did not look that appetizing.

Hook brooded through the rest of the meal. Emma had to admit that it was kind of hot.

As they left the diner, Hook said morosely, "They streamlined me, you know, booted me right out of McDonaldland."

Emma didn't know what came over her, she swung Hook out of sight, pinned him to the wall and kissed the frown off his face. Emma was just about to climb him when a throat cleared behind her.

Yep. It was her parents.

Emma couldn't find her words, so Hook did the talking, "Emma and I were just leaving to continue my pirate studies."

Emma got a good look at Charming's face and decided he was going to cause a scene and start treating her like a teenager which she would not react well to and that was the last thing they needed when they had Peter Pan running loose. So Emma made a one-time concession to paternal over-protectiveness, "I can't. Not tonight. I need to speak with David and Mary Margaret. I also want say goodnight to Henry before he goes to sleep."

"As you wish." Hook agreed immediately, bowed and walked away. Emma flushed bright red as she watched him go. She was remembering the night they watched _The Princess Bride_. Emma still couldn't figure out how Hook had convinced her they needed to do role playing to help him become a better pirate. Of course they only acted out the kissing parts between Wesley and Buttercup.

As Hook strolled towards the Jolly Roger, he heard on the wind Snow ask Emma a question, "Do you know why Hook keeps calling Neal, Humperdinck?" He laughed imagining Emma stumbling through that answer.

Hook's plan had been working perfectly. His acclimation to piracy in a modern era made for the perfect excuse to spend to time with Emma and pull her into his arms from time to time. Hook was fairly certain that Emma was on to him and quietly going along with his convenient excuses to canoodle. Captain Hook was the archetype of pirates after all. Emma must know you can't improve upon perfection.

But it was getting harder to find good source material. He'd had to resort to advertising tonight of all the ridiculous things. But Hook visited Belle at the library earlier that day looking for new research opportunities and she had suggested _The Pirates of Penzance_. It sounded promising.

_A/N This chapter is a test balloon to see how my humor meshes with OUAT fic readers. If you like it I'm going to figure how to translate the full blown musical in my head to words without using lyrics as a crutch. That should be an interesting challenge. Should I continue? Tell me in the little box._


End file.
